The Renaissance Steamroller and Bravo’s “Work of Art”

Bravo’s “Work of Art” is a bummer. The recent show confirmed its inherent thrust: to devalue ideas outside of 400-year-old western fine-art hegemony. I don’t blame the show, I blame the Renaissance and its undying strong-armed influence that demands non-innovative western art making.

Bravo’s “Work of Art” is a bummer. The recent show confirmed its inherent thrust: to devalue ideas outside of 400-year-old western fine-art hegemony. I don’t blame the show, I blame the Renaissance and its undying strong-armed influence that demands non-innovative western art making.

The Renaissance is the steamroller of western art. It continues to smash and wreck new spores of ideas under its gigantic steel wheel. Craft, boldness, literal, digestible, all continue to rule the realm. Picasso’s 2-d plane-breaking yearn for seeing different hasn’t survived the steamroller, nor has the Abstract Expressionists’ cry for freedom from the obvious. Look at the work being made by the folks in the “Work of Art” studio, almost all of it could call the Renaissance it’s daddy. If we visited a studio in the 19th century we’d expect to see much of the same stuff.

What’s missing? The most important historical art-battle of the past 50 years that art HAS won against the “Steamroller” is “INCLUSION,” though you wouldn’t know that by listening to the judges on this show. Inclusive art enjoyment and critique is simply this:

I do not look at art through MY subjective eyes; I look at art through NEW and OPEN objective eyes…

… I work hard, knowing the artist has worked even harder to show me something special from their unique vantage point. I don’t have to like it; it’s not about my preference. The onus is on me to learn, to study and engage, not for the artist to make it easy for me to understand.

If the artist calls the piece a portrait, and it doesn’t have a face, then I better get thinking deeply about what is going on here, NOT to dismiss it as a non-portrait.

This is what we westerners keep learning from un-guided travel, cooking and eating, open-source technology, the Internet and social media, reading and research, HURRAH for inclusive thinking! If BP had considered inclusive thinking versus doing it the way they’ve always been, maybe that disaster could have been averted! But for some reason, Art, which is supposed to be leading the way forward has been rolled back 200 years for a TV show. Ugh.

It should not be lost on anyone that the woman who chose to work in pattern and abstraction was the loser and not that dude who did the clown fiasco. She got Renaissance-steam-rolled! Her portrait might have captured the assignment the best! Who said a portrait had to be a face? Man, if I handed in a portrait that was a plain old face when I was in art school, nearly 15 years ago, I’d get an F!

It’s also a bummer they gave Nao Bustamante a hard time. The judges were perturbed they had to engage her art in an un-literal 3-D space. Um, it’s a pretty standard art-school homework assignment to do un-literal work in 3-D space. What would they say about Eva Hesse, Ann Hamilton, Andrew Goldsworthy, or even for the love of all things 3-D, Christo and Jean-Claude!?!

Ok, ok, maybe it makes for good TV? Maybe it will bring art to a wider audience? All I know is the Renaissance is still king, queen and the kitchen sink. Its kicking ass and taking names, and continues to crush all the new ideas that lie in its way. “Work of Art” is no exception.